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Halfway through filming, MGM sent a sound crew to Africa because of the public's desire for all-talking sound pictures. However, the sound quality was so poor almost all the dialogue sequences were reshot at MGM's Culver City Studio. African natives Mutia Omoolu and Riano Tindama were brought back to Hollywood for some additional filming. When this activity caused rumors to circulate that the entire production was filmed on the back lot, MGM scrapped much of the new footage, including scenes with Marjorie Rambeau, who was replaced by Olive Carey as Edith Trent.See more »

I woke up in the middle of the night in my apartment in New York City,
turned on Turner Classic Movies, and here is this amazing adventure in
Africa captured on film that deserves a "10" for tremendous.

What an effort making this movie must have been for everyone involved.
The sheer magnitude of the undertaking is something that would never
get produced today. Only though the magic looking glass of film can we
witness fiction and nonfiction brought together on such scale.

For kids who love "Star Wars" or "Lord of the Rings" or the new crop of
video-game movies, imagining what it was like for the cast and crew of
"Trader Horn" to accomplish what they did is something entirely
different. There's nothing digital here; it's all real. You can SMELL
the animals on the plains of the old (and gone) Africa, a brutal and
far more primordial place than it is today, all filmed without CGI or
green-screen gimmickry.

The cast includes Harry Carey in the title role (who performed in more
than 250 films) along with the arrestingly beautiful young actress,
Edwina Booth, playing a bizarre White Goddess, and who, like many of
the cast and crew, was so wiped out and sick from what must have been
grindingly grueling conditions on location in Africa, in 1930, that it
basically ended her acting career. Two of the crew died during filming;
one consumed by crocodiles, and one native boy charged by a rhino in a
scene captured and kept in the film. Duncan Renaldo (who played the
Cisco Kid years later on television) adds another dimension to the
ensemble of the four leading players, completed by Mutia Omoolu, a
native African playing Trader Horn's gun bearer in the only role of his
life, plus hundreds of extras and other African actors whose names are
lost to history.

Fortunately, the remarkable effort of the people who created "Trader
Horn" is not lost. Today, and for generations to come, we can
experience this truly amazing adventure in Africa and "miracle of
pictures."

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